Joseph Merlin Bowers

The movie Joker was controversial even before its release. NAMI national made the pre-release statement: “As many of you know the movie Joker is being released tomorrow. As we understand it, the joker is characterized as having a mental illness and later perpetuates acts of violence.

NAMI national has reached out to Warner Bros. about the film to discuss how they are talking about the issue publicly.

For your reference, we typically follow these guidelines:

NAMI does not encourage protests/boycotts which are tactics that can inadvertently publicize the film.

NAMI does not comment on films we have not seen.

When appropriate, we promote those with positive portrayals/messages.

If NAMI national is contacted by the media, we will respond with: NAMI is concerned by any media that perpetuates stereotypes and discrimination against people with mental illnesses.”

Having now seen the movie, I will comment.

I have lived with a serious mental illness nearly 60 years and I loved the movie and strongly endorse it. I hope it has as big an impact in a positive way as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest had in mostly negative ways.

It does portray the joker as having a mental illness and he does kill people and incite rioting. However, he is portrayed as a sympathetic character one can relate to and understand how he feels and his motivations.

In the climatic scene he states: “What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like thrash? You get exactly what you fucking deserve.”

The movie Joker turns out to be a serious indictment of the mental health industry and society in general.

Our society has largely abandoned the seriously mentally ill and we pay an enormous price for that in many, many ways day in and day out. And that is exactly what we fucking deserve.

To be fair some of us had good intentions striving to protect civil liberties. The problem with that is that freedom and liberty come with much personal responsibility. Even as small children are ill equipped to make life altering decisions, so are psychotic adults. In these cases civil liberties are not a gift but a burden too heavy to be borne.

The joker also complains that mental health professionals don’t listen to him and don’t understand him. I have encountered some who never try to get into the head of the individual patient. They have their standard treatment plans for a specific diagnosis that they apply to all so diagnosed and standard, rote questions that they ask each session. But there are, in my experience, many excellent, dedicated professionals who do listen, do attempt to understand each individual and streamline a treatment plan to that understanding of each individual.

For most of my life, I have felt that our societies treatment of our seriously mentally ill has been steadily getting worse in many respects. Currently, I believe that we have turned a corner. There is greater awareness that we have created a serious crises and greater desire to make things better. I have more hope now than even a short time ago for a better future for families dealing with serious mental illness.

Still today each day we see many totally preventable tragedies. Many, many lives are needlessly wasted while experiencing more hardship and suffering than necessary.

When we decided to abandon the seriously mentally ill, what did we expect?